Resident Evil 6 Review

Resident Evil 6 is finally playable on the PS4 and Xbox One after the original was released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2012. The game continues the story of the fan favorite characters from the Resident Evil universe including Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong. It also brings back some old favorites like Sherry Birkin and adds some new characters to the mix as well.

When it originally launched for the PS3 and Xbox 360 back in October 2012, it was judged rather harshly by critics. The main complaint that was thrown around during its launch was its poorly paced campaign and the abundance of useless quick-time events (QTEs) that often broke the immersion of the gameplay and were poorly designed for the most part. These issues were later rectified in a game update that made most of these QTEs optional. Players could toggle an option to make these QTE fulfill automatically and thankfully this option is included in this re-release for the PS4 and Xbox One.

If you hated the campaign of Resident Evil 6, then don’t expect to see any improvement made for the re-release on the PS4 and Xbox One. The campaign remains the same but since one of the main complaint was regarding the QTEs, the option to skip them makes the campaign much more bearable. This is aside from the fact that the game packs in a lot of value for its current price. If you have never played Resident Evil 6, then you are in for a treat as there are around 3 different main story campaign and a short side-campaign and each of them have their own characters, enemies and boss battles. You can either play as Leon Kennedy and Helena Harper, Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans, Jack Muller and Sherry Birkin. Players will also have the option to play as Ada Wong right from the start of the game.

Gameplay wise, this is easily the best Resident Evil in the series so far. The amount of options it offers the players to take down the enemy is unmatched. When the game was originally released for the PS3 and Xbox 360, it was released with a rather narrow FOV (field of view) that had a noticeable impact on the gameplay because it was hard to see enemies. This issue is again rectified in this re-release and the FOV is wide now which makes it much more easy to see enemies and the environment.

Resident Evil 6 also runs at native 1080p and 60 fps on both PS4 and Xbox One, and this is a big improvement over the sub-30 fps on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The input lag that was noticeable on the PS3 and Xbox 360 is now completely gone and as far as we have played the game, there was hardly any noticeable frame drop which ensure that most of the game remains playable compared to the stuttering mess that was the PS3 and Xbox 360 version. The graphics are also much more crisp and clear thanks to the jump the 1080p resolution. Jaggies are now far less noticeable and while the shadows still have occasional dithering, the game looks better than it did on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Unfortunately, the textures give a mixed result as there are some noticeably low quality textures throughout the game, but they also existed on the PC version and since this is essentially a port of the PC version, it is understandable that the same textures are used on PS4 and Xbox One.

As mentioned earlier, there are around 4 different campaigns, each with a different character. It will take a while to complete these campaign and it took us around 30 hours to complete each of them on the normal difficulty settings. Rest assured, the playtime can depend on your skill level and whether you are replaying the game or starting from scratch.

Since this is essentially a re-release that looks be to a port of the PC version, there isn’t much to offer in term of new content. The game comes with all of the DLC including the multiplayer maps. It also includes the previously PC exclusive No Mercy mode. This mode drops a lot of enemies for the players to eliminate and differs from the regular Mercenary mode. It was never released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 due to performance issues but now that the game has been ported to a better hardware, the mode is now playable as well.

Resident Evil 6 offers a great value for its current price. However, it also suffers from some noticeable issues including a campaign that is unevenly paced and a story that seems like an incoherent mess at times. Aside from these issues, it has one of the most satisfying gameplay and one of the best Mercenaries mode in the series that offers tons of replay value as well.

Resident Evil 6 is available now on the PS4 and Xbox One. It was developed and published by Capcom. This review covers the PS4 version of the game.